- - Death of NASCAR's Dale Earnhardt at Daytona remembered 25 years later

Mitchell Northam, USA TODAYFebruary 15, 2026 at 5:03 AM

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Death of NASCAR's Dale Earnhardt at Daytona remembered 25 years later

It’s difficult to encapsulate the full scope of Dale Earnhardt’s legacy in stockcar racing. In life, he transcended the sport, steering its popularity to new heights. In death, he transformed it.

Nearly 25 years ago this weekend — on Feb. 18, 2001 — Earnhardt, the seven-time Winston Cup champion, died after crashing on the final lap of the Daytona 500.

Fans today are still mourning the loss of the man they called the Intimidator. Go to any NASCAR track and you’ll still see countless shirts, jackets, flags and hats sporting his iconic No. 3.

In addition to winning a whole lot of races, Earnhardt elevated NASCAR and brought in a new wave of fans with visionary merchandising and marketing strategies. The driver that some folks called “the Man in Black” or “One Tough Customer” was on Wheaties boxes, the covers of Sports Illustrated and TV Guide, and on Coca-Cola vending machines. He was in commercials for McDonald’s and Burger King. He went on David Letterman’s show and made cameos in Hollywood movies. The ninth-grade dropout turned racing legend flipped his fame and success on the track into a business. In 1996, he sold his merchandising company Sports Image to Action Performance for a reported $30 million.

In the same way Michael Jordan is to the NBA, Earnhardt was synonymous with NASCAR. Some fans adored him, some hated him — but everyone knew the mustached man wearing aviators from Kannapolis, North Carolina was one of the best drivers to get behind the wheel.

“His character was bigger than life,” NASCAR vice chairman Mike Helton once said of Earnhardt in an ESPN documentary. “It’s like trying to explain John Wayne or Neil Armstrong.”

While Earnhardt impacted the sport in a tremendous way while he was dominating tracks of all kinds from 1979 to 2001, his death changed it in a monumental way for the better.

Earnhardt always knew the risks associated with racing. One of the qualities that made him great was that he never feared them. Above all else, he wanted to win. Of the dangers of stockcar racing, Earnhardt said in 1980, “I ain’t never wanted to do anything else.”

How did Dale Earnhardt die?

By the time the green flag waved at the 2001 Daytona 500, Earnhardt — while still driving the No. 3 for Richard Childress Racing — had started his own Cup Series team: Dale Earnhardt Inc. Among his drivers were his son — Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the No. 8 Budweiser car — and his friend Michael Waltrip driving the No. 15 NAPA Auto Parts machine.

When the race was nearing its finish, the three of them were running in the top three at the top of the pack: Waltrip in first, Junior in second, and Senior in third. It seemed obvious that Earnhardt was trying to ensure a victory for one of his DEI drivers and went into defense mode, attempting to block others drivers from catching up to Waltrip and Junior.

On turn four of the final lap, as Junior pushed Waltrip toward the finish line, Earnhardt received some contact, lost control of his No. 3 car and slammed head first into the concrete wall.

Folks watching from home could feel the mood change from the broadcast booth, where former champion Darrell Waltrip quickly went from celebrating his brother in one moment to worrying about Earnhardt in the very next: “I just hope Dale’s okay. I guess he’s alright, isn’t he?”

“You got the sense that something wasn’t right,” Helton told ESPN.

Less than three hours after the race ended, Helton returned to the press room at Daytona International Speedway to deliver the somber and shocking news: “We’ve lost Dale Earnhardt.”

Earnhardt died about two months shy of his 50th birthday. The cause of death was determined as a basilar skull fracture, suffered during his head-on collision with the wall at Daytona. Earnhardt was at least the ninth NASCAR driver to die of this injury since 1990.

He is also the last.

How did Dale Earnhardt's death change NASCAR?

The death of Earnhardt was the catalyst for multiple safety reforms in NASCAR.

“One of the greatest drivers to ever sit in a race car is gone. When a star disappears, then people pay attention,” Kyle Petty, whose son Adam died of a basilar skull fracture in a crash at New Hampshire in 2000, told ESPN.

By October of 2001, NASCAR began mandating the use of the HANS (head and neck support) device, a restraint designed to keep the head and shoulders of a driver in place on a frontal impact. It sits on top of a driver’s shoulders and attaches to the helmet. This device, and others like it, were available to drivers before Earnhardt’s death, but not mandated by NASCAR.

In addition to requiring all drivers to use the HANS device, NASCAR in 2003 also implemented the SAFER (steel and foam energy reduction) barrier at all of its tracks. Added to the walls around speedways, these barriers reduce G-forces by 30 to 80%, soaking up the impact of crashes and reducing injuries to drivers.

NASCAR also made design improvements in seats, belts, helmets and cockpits, and began collecting crash data to continue to make innovations in safety.

What happened to NASCAR because of Earnhardt’s death is as much a part of his legacy as his wins and triumphs on the track. Since Earnhardt’s tragic and fatal crash at Daytona, no driver in any of NASCAR’s top-three touring circuits has been killed in competition.

Dale Earnhardt career highlights

The son of the dominant short-track racer Ralph, Dale Earnhardt ran his first full season in NASCAR’s Winston Cup Series in 1979.

Driving the No. 2 blue-and-yellow Chevrolet Monte Carlo for Rod Osterlund Racing, Earnhardt won his first race at Bristol and notched 10 other top-five finishes in 1979, winning Rookie of the Year honors. The next season he won five races and captured his first championship.

In 1984, Earnhardt began driving the No. 3 — first with the blue-and-yellow paint scheme with a Wrangler sponsorship before switching the signature black-and-red GM Goodwrench look in 1988 — full time for Richard Childress Racing and would win six more championships: 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1994. He is tied with Richard Petty and Jimmie Johnson for the most Cup Series championships in NASCAR history.

Earnhardt took victories in all of NASCAR’s majors, winning the Southern 500 at Darlington and the World 600 at Charlotte three times each, taking the checkered flag at the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1995, and finally winning the Daytona 500 in 1998.

He’s eighth all-time in Cup Series victories with 76. Earnhardt is the all-time Cup Series wins leader at Talladega with 10 and Atlanta with nine.

While he only won the Daytona 500 once, he has 34 victories at Daytona International Speedway across all competitions, the most by any driver ever.

He was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers in 1998, and was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 2010.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: How did Dale Earnhardt die? NASCAR legend remembered at Daytona

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